Bananas for Yonanas?

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The final product, cold and creamy frozen banana ice cream from the Yonanas machine. | Matthew Grotto~Sun-Times Media

Cost

This sucker retails for $49.99.

Mix it up

OK, so you don’t really need a recipe, because this thing is foolproof. It’s just a matter of tossing in the kind of fruit that you like and experimenting a little bit. But if you don’t like to freestyle, you can try out some of these.

Chocolate-blueberry-banana

2 frozen bananas

1/2 cup slighly thawed blueberries

2 tablespoons chocolate chips

Pineapple banana

2 frozen bananas

1/2 cup slightly thawed pineapple

Cherry chocolate banana

2 frozen bananas

1/2 cup pitted cherries, slightly thawed

3 tablespoons chocolate chips

CALORIE COUNT

There’s no denying the health benefits of eating a homemade concoction of frozen bananas and other fruit instead of ice cream. One cup of soft-serve ice cream has 380 calories and 22 grams of fat. For example, the pineapple-banana concoction comes in at around 200 calories and less than 1 gram of fat.

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Updated: February 27, 2012 8:01AM

I’m not one for kitchen gadgetry. I openly mock those who have quesadilla makers, s’mores makers and those silly little contraptions that make doughnuts.

But then on Christmas morning, I became one of those people when I opened a gift from my wife — a Yonanas Ice Cream Maker. It’s a device that claims to turn frozen bananas into a cold, creamy treat that resembles soft-serve ice cream, while at the same time cutting calories, eliminating saturated fat and getting a few servings of fruit.

Sounds great, but even if the consistency is right, would it taste like anything you’d want to eat? Or would it be like eating frozen baby food?

I had to find out.

After properly prepping the bananas (which involves peeling and freezing them) and other ingredients (blueberries, chocolate chips), it was time to put it to the test.

The device is very easy to use and the biggest challenge is resisting the urge to jam the banana through the intake too quickly. Slow and steady wins the race to creamy goodness. It does take a little bit of practice working in multiple ingredients and getting them mixed properly.

What slowly oozed out of the spout and into the bowl resembled soft-serve ice cream. But we all know that with food, looks can be deceiving. Happily, that wasn’t the case this time.

The end result was cold, creamy and, well, pretty darn close to ice cream — banana ice cream. It was a little on the thick side for soft-serve, but absolutely workable.

The bottom line is you can mix and match other fruits and ingredients to get different flavors, but you’re not going to eliminate the banana taste. Peaches, mango, blueberries and pineapple tend to work best, I’ve found.

Besides the tasty results, this little fake-ice-cream-making machine is surprising in a few other ways.

For example, it’s loud. As in I’ve made only marginally more noise cutting down a tree with a chainsaw. Do not use it within 300 feet of a sleeping baby.

Considering there are multiple parts caked with frozen fruit when you’re done, it cleans up in a snap. Simply run the parts under warm water for 30 seconds.

Tips

Freeze the bowl you’ll be placing under your Yonanas machine an hour before you’re going to get started. This will prevent your fake ice cream from melting. Melting frozen bananas look kind of gross.

Any fruit other than bananas will need to be slightly thawed to properly blend. We tried one with completely frozen pineapple and ended up with creamy bananas and chunks of frozen pineapple.

If you really hate bananas, significantly cut back on them or skip them altogether. Frozen peaches work pretty well, but the result will be a bit on the slushy side.

Only mix up what you’re going to eat at the moment. It doesn’t freeze well.